San Francisco might seem a long way from Helsinki - indeed, of the three Nokia territories, San Francisco might well appear to be the group with the least market share, with the fewest people who care about the company’s products, particularly when compared with Asia and Europe.
This is likely why Nokia turned to their Senior Producer, Scott Foe, to find a blue ocean strategy of how a mere game can ultimately result in the purchase of Nokia devices by a game-addicted public.
Foe has been credited with creating Pocket Kingdom, the world’s first massively multi-player online (MMO) game for the mobile platform – an impressive technical achievement. But with his new game, he’s planted the Nokia flag firmly in another territory – in this case, cross-platform between the N-Gage platform and the networked Windows PC.
In a 2005 keynote, the president of Sony Online Entertainment unveiled the vision of being able to play a Sony MMO across platforms – on the PC, the PSP, the PS3, the mobile phone, and possibly even the toaster. Seven months later, Microsoft’s Bill Gates revealed an identical vision, for the Xbox 360, Windows Vista, and various handles and mobile devices using Windows.
But the ribbon goes to Nokia for actually implementing a game that is simultaneously playable through a phone or a PC. Mr Foe modestly comments that the technology framework was already in place, and his team simply had to make use of it, adding: “So we had the money to invest in innovation in the game part.”
And at an event last Friday, inside San Francisco’s Cartoon Art Museum, the team showcases the work that’s gone into creating Reset Generation. Foe begins by talking about the N-Gage platform, and its design as a platform for content access.
“But if you’re going to be able to easily discover, try and purchase mobile content, you have to have something that’s really worth discovering, trying and purchasing. So we give you… Reset Generation”, he says.
The game features ten heroes pulled from the halls of high-score fame, each created by a talented concept artist, and who are introduced to the press that evening. The game features a chiptune score by 8 Bit Weapon – and their performance of the Reset Generation Anthem and other songs is a fitting close to the press demonstration.
At one point during the evening, your correspondent overheard product manager Scott Howard discussing the game’s audio with a reporter. On mobile, said Howard, one often plays with the sound turned down. After personally trying the game with the sound turned up, he commented, that he was surprised to find how much the audio added to the experience, and that the voice-overs were just icing on the cake.
“It feels good, you know?” After noting how unfortunate it is that mobile gamers might miss the sound, it was said that there is a marketing solution to this design problem – this lends credence to the rumour that the slogan of Reset Generation will be “Turn Up Your Volume.”
But gameplay is the main thing. Foe tells the audience that he wanted unfairly addictive gameplay, and that Reset Generation is an homage to classic gameplay – a difficult task, but something that the developer, Red Lynx, was capable of.
First, it’s cross-platform between PC and N-Gage device. On the phone, it’s easy one-handed control. Both PC and mobile devices can play against each other in up-to-four player multi-player. There is also an extensive single-player mode.
And, unlike most games which scale to the platform they appear on, the PC and mobile versions of Project Reset are of identical quality. In fact, it’s said repeatedly during the evening that this is the highest production value ever seen on a mobile title.
The next point of interest is what was originally rumoured – inaccurately – to be “user-generated content”. That notion came from the PC version, which will make heavy use of community features – but users aren’t actually planned to create in-game content.
Instead, the web site will be used for tracking high scores and, indeed, all the progress a player makes whilst playing the game. You can go back and watch all your previous matches, share those videos. Howard says from the start, they asked themselves “How can we make a game that invites people to play it, a game that grows the community?”
“And the way to make a bigger community,” continues Howard, “Is to reach out beyond what we have [on N-Gage].” He notes that mobile gaming might be large, but by reaching out to those PC players who might not have been exposed to the game, they’ll have a chance to participate. Additionally he expects N-Gage players to use the web site version in between sessions on the mobile.
While the game will cost between $10 and $14 on the mobile, the PC version will be completely free to play. And not only can you play it on the official web site, you can embed it in your Facebook profile, or your blog, or anywhere else on the internet.
This is where the game’s architects expect word-of-mouth to play a part. Foe notes that it’s a game that’s created its own promotion. The ultimate hope is that PC players will like the game and want to play it when they’re not chained to desks and desktops. Which means they’ll need to purchase a Nokia N-Gage-compatible device in future. It’s a long-range strategy, but it's at the heart of the cross-platform approach, it explains why Reset Generation is free for PCs, and also why so much effort was concentrated on good, addictive gameplay.
Foe concludes that there is no seasonality in mobile gaming. “This is not the console space, this is not the PC space. It’s not like you have two weeks at retail, and then they toss you in the bargain bin. We’re talking about sales cycles of 18 months, three years, five years.”
“Nokia owns one in seven pockets on the planet,” says Foe, smiling. “We want the other six.”
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